"Very difficult to keep thin in this part of the world, isn't it? Every morning when I look at myself in the glass I find myself fatter than I was the day before. Then I say to myself, 'I'll give up bread and potatoes and drink hot water.' Hot water! Loathsome stuff. Moreover, have you noticed, Archdeacon, that a man who diets himself is a perfect nuisance to all his friends and neighbours? The moment he refuses potatoes his hostess says to him, 'Why, Mr. Smith, not one of our potatoes! Out of our own garden!' And then he explains to her that he is dieting, whereupon every one at the table hurriedly recites long and dreary histories of how they have dieted at one time or another with this or that success. The meal is ruined for yourself and every one else. Now, isn't it so? What do you do for yourself when you are putting on flesh?" "I am not aware," said Brandon in his most haughty manner, "that I _am_ putting on flesh." "Of course I don't mean just now," answered Ronder, smiling. "In any case, the jolting of this wagonette is certain to reduce one. Anyway, I agree with you. It's a tiresome subject. There's no escaping fate. We stout men are doomed, I fancy." There was a long silence. After Brandon had moved his legs about in every possible direction and found it impossible to escape Ronder's knees, he said: "Excuse my knocking into you so often, Canon." "Oh, that's all right," said Ronder, laughing. "This drive comes worse on you than myself, I fancy. You're bonier.... What a splendid figure the Bishop is! A great man--really, a great man. There's something about a man of that simplicity and purity of character that we lesser men lack. Something out of our grasp altogether." "You haven't known him very long, I think," said Brandon, who considered himself in no way a lesser man than the Bishop. "No, I have not," said Ronder, pleasantly amused at the incredible ease with which he was able to make the Archdeacon rise. "I've never been to Carpledon before to-day. I especially appreciated his inviting me when he was having so old a friend as yourself." Another silence. Ronder looked about him; the afternoon was hot, and little beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. One trickled down his forehead, another into his eye. The road, early in the year though it was, was already dusty, and the high Glebeshire hedges hid the view. The irritation of the heat, the dust and the sense that they were enclosed and would for the rest of their lives jog along, thus, knee to knee, down an eternal road, made Ronder uncomfortable; when he was uncomfortable he was dangerous. He looked at the fixed obstinacy of the Archdeacon's face and said: "Poor Morrison! So he's gone. I never knew him, but he must have been a fine fellow. And the Pybus living is vacant." Brandon said nothing. "An important decision that will be--I beg your pardon. That's my knee again. "It's to be hoped that they will find a good man."